When Graham Jones returns to Zimbabwe to recapture his idyllic Rhodesian childhood, a chance encounter leads him to him to meet a one-time child slave called Astonishment. Now dedicated to helping society’s most vulnerable, Astonishment grew up on the other side of the racial divide and is set on revisiting his very different past.
As they travel together, this remarkable Zimbabwean shares the incredible story of how he overcame grinding poverty and being sold by relatives as a slave. Both men lay old ghosts to rest as Astonishment forgives and reconciles his divided family and Graham reconnects with the land of his youth – not through the places he knew, but through the people he didn’t.
Set against the daily brutalities of racist Rhodesia and Mugabe’s bankrupt Zimbabwe, Astonishment is a moving account of nostalgia, race and reconciliation that celebrates the transformative power of forgiveness.
